Love, twisted
by boredandlazy01
Summary: Arnold is finally coming home from the jungle, hoping that the girl of his dreams (and nightmares) still feels the same way she did when they were kids. But Hillwood has always been a place where anything can happen and all is not as it appears. A story for the Halloween season.
1. Chapter 1

Arnold couldn't wait.

He loved every minute with his parents (well, most minutes) but God how he'd missed hotdogs, Dinoland, the stupid cheese fair. Gerald, his grandparents. Helga.

And now he got to have all of it together. No longer did living with his parents mean that he had to be separated from everything else. He pressed his face against the cold window. His city was just coming into view in the distance, framed by ice crystals on the glass. He tried to make out some of the landmarks, though he knew he'd be seeing them all up close again soon enough.

"Excited, Arnold?" asked his mom gently, from her seat beside him.

He gave her a quick smile before turning back to the window. "Definitely."

It wasn't that he hadn't enjoyed his years in the jungle. He had made some good friends there, had some great experiences. And some tougher ones. If he was honest, he considered it his second home. But...

Every time he'd returned to visit, the pull to come back for good had gotten stronger. Every time he'd hung out with his friends, seen his grandparents getting older with each trip. Every time he'd seen her.

He couldn't kid himself. He knew that at least half the butterflies in his stomach wore pink ribbons. He always tried to be honest with himself, and his honesty only had one thing to tell him: You want to make it real between you and Helga. You want to know if she still feels the same. You want to kiss her...and stuff...and bring her on lame dates to movies and French restaurants. It wouldn't be lame with Helga.

They had left things...unresolved. They had told each other their feelings, had what passed for a Big Damn Kiss when you were eleven, dated for eight months, and then...

Then his parents told him they had to go back to San Lorenzo. That the Green Eyes were fighting for their rights with the government and logging companies, and they needed advocates. Arnold had made the toughest decision of his life, and decided to go with them. He had only just found them; he couldn't lose them again.

He had told Helga. There were tears, but she had done her best not to hold it against him. She told him he deserved to be with his parents. He had promised he would return. One day.

Since then, they had swapped the occasional letter, though she seemed oddly hesitant to write sometimes. They had been friendly when he'd visited, but he hoped he hadn't imagined the tension between them; the wistful, almost sad look in her eyes.

They were fifteen, now. She couldn't wait around forever; she would eventually start dating other guys. Heck, he was lucky she didn't have a boyfriend as it was. Just a day or two more, and he could make his move. Ask her out, properly this time. Make things the way they were meant to be.

His body almost buzzed in excitement, even as his stomach turned at the fear that she mightn't feel the same. But, call him an optimist... He was hopeful.

* * *

Their taxi pulled up to the old boarding house, and Arnold couldn't wait to throw himself into bed after the extremely long trip. _His_ bed; his room had been kept the same over the years. He felt dirty and fatigued in every inch of him, with the usual inexplicable post-journey nausea, but he almost ran up the steps with his bag and threw the door open. "Grandma, Grandpa, we're here!"

His grandmother hurried out of the kitchen towards him. "Nice to see yeh, Tex! And you've brought the troops," she said, smiling towards Arnold's parents, who were struggling with their bags on the kerb.

Arnold took a step forward and hugged her. "It's good to be home."

She smiled at him warmly as he pulled back. "And it's good to have yeh."

His grandfather was making his way from his office, slower than Arnold liked to see, leaning on his cane. He had fallen in the ice last winter and broken his hip, which was a large part of the reason why Arnold's parents had decided to return. The upkeep of the place was getting too much for him, and none of them wanted to be away from Phil and Gertie as they aged. It saddened Arnold to the point of tears to think about it, but he had finally accepted that they wouldn't be around forever. "Arnold! Nice of you to drop by. How you been?"

He ran forward to hug his grandfather, too. "Good, Grandpa. How are you?" he asked, unable to stop himself glancing towards his hip.

Phil waved his hand. "Fit as a fiddle. Why I could-" He lifted his cane and started to kick his feet out in a dance, before doubling over with a pained, "Ooo! Okay, maybe not."

" _Dad_!" Arnold's father reprimanded from the door. "You're meant to be taking it easy!"

And so the afternoon passed, and Arnold could hardly have been happier. Arnold's grandma insisted on cooking them lunch (radish stew) and all the boarders who were home stopped by the kitchen to welcome them back, sitting around laughing and slurping the strange concoction with them.

But before long, Arnold had to excuse himself to go take a nap. He hadn't slept in 24 hours, and after all, he had all the time in the world to catch up with everyone. He was home for good. Feeling blissfully happy, if a bit nervous about his reintroduction to Hillwood (and Helga), he collapsed into his wonderful bed. With thoughts of going to see her tomorrow, he fell asleep and dreamed of possibilities.

* * *

"Arnold? Arnold, wake up." He awoke to gentle shaking of his shoulder, and a familiar voice unfamiliar in its tone.

He opened his eyes. It was dark out, but someone had turned his lamp on. The voice belonged to Gerald, who was leaning over him.

"Gerald!" Arnold blinked. He sat up, feeling extremely groggy still. "Hey, man," he croaked.

"Hey," Gerald replied, saying nothing else.

Arnold wondered why he was here. He had called him from the airport in San Lorenzo, and they had arranged to meet tomorrow. Not that he wasn't glad to see his best friend ahead of schedule. "Great to see you," he said truthfully.

"You too, man, you too." Something was off about Gerald; his tone, his face.

"So...what's up?"

Arnold had never seen Gerald wear this expression before, and watched as his friend gulped in...anxiety? He sat down on the edge of Arnold's bed.

"What is it?" he repeated.

Gerald looked purely heartbroken for a moment, and shook his head. "It's bad, man. It's bad."

He was scared now. "What is?"

"Helga," Gerald choked, and Arnold's stomach clenched painfully. "Helga's dead."

* * *

AN: Welcome to a Very Arnold Halloween. Or, er, October. I used to love the creepy episodes of Hey Arnold, and this is part tribute to those episodes, part pulpy paranormal romance. And, hopefully, part realistic portrayal of the characters. I hope to post the last chapter on Halloween. This story will probably be a little dark at times, cos that's my tendency even when I'm not writing something purposely macabre...


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Warning for anyone who's experienced the loss of someone close to them recently. This chapter deals with loss and could be upsetting.

* * *

" _What_? Gerald...is this a joke?" He had a terrible feeling that it wasn't. Gerald wasn't that good of an actor. And he would never joke about something like this.

But then, what was the alternative? That it was true? That wasn't possible.

Gerald shook his head, his eyes screwed up in pain. "No. Arnold. It's not a joke." He opened his eyes to watch Arnold, and they were full of pity and...fear?

Arnold felt his brain firing and misfiring, totally ignorant of how to react, how to think, how to feel. "She can't be!" he said. Surely, if he drove that point home enough, Gerald would see reason. Helga couldn't be _dead_. She couldn't be. _Please_ , Arnold begged something or other.

But all Gerald said was, "I'm sorry," in barely more than a whisper.

The question 'What happened?' formed in Arnold's mind, but he couldn't ask it. That's the kind of thing he would ask if Helga had died.

He couldn't say anything, in fact. Or he didn't want to. He didn't think he would say anything again for a while, or ever. It wasn't important.

Blasted Gerald heard the question anyway. "...They found her earlier."

No sentence had ever caused Arnold more pain. _Oh God, she's really.._. Horrible images assaulted him; bile rose in his throat. Helga, alone, lifeless, _gone_.

"In the park. They think...it was murder. I found out when... Phoebe was meant to meet her at Slausen's, and she didn't show. Phoebe rang her phone, and then her house. Her mother answered and...told her. Phoebe was in pieces. I've been with her all evening."

The park. They'd found her in the park. The place they had played as children, where they had shared fleeting moments of closeness even in the days when she was liable to push his face in the mud. The place they had gone to spend so many afternoons as preteens, holding hands and sitting close. The place...where she died?

Arnold groaned and his face fell into his hands. His eyes were tearing up. "Gerald, no!" he begged desperately. " _No_! This can't be happening!" He looked imploringly at his best friend, but just saw tears in his eyes too.

"I'm sorry, man," he said miserably. "I'm _so_ sorry." And he grabbed Arnold in a fierce hug.

He felt numb and in searing pain all at once. His face was hot and wet. "I can't... I can't... _I've been gone for years_!" he wailed. " _Years_! I _never would have left! I never should have left_!" What was he thinking? To have a girl like Helga, and not spend every minute with her? "Gerald," he sobbed, " _this isn't how it's meant to be_!" This was wrong. He felt it in every fibre of his being.

"I know, Arnold. I know." Gerald clutched him tighter.

But he didn't know, thought Arnold. And he couldn't explain it.

"I promise you," Gerald said viciously, almost shaking him, "they'll catch the bastard that did this. We'll catch him ourselves if we have to."

Right. Someone had...killed her. He supposed he should feel rage. He imagined it would come. "Was it...? Did...?" But he couldn't ask. He would find out soon enough. A teenage girl, murdered in a park. Anyone who watched the news knew the likely motive. _God, what did they do to her_? He felt prickles of an awful anger, but mostly he just felt like vomiting.

"I don't know any more than what Phoebe told me," Gerald said thickly.

Arnold nodded in the wet patch he had made on Gerald's shoulder. "Excuse me," he said, and leaned back from him. He stood on legs made of paper and used them to stumble out the door and down the stairs. He barely made it to the toilet in time, and barely felt it as he retched and heaved.

* * *

Stella Cosgrave-Shortman had mixed feelings about being back in America, back in Hillwood.

She was happy her son was happy. She knew he'd had a girlfriend before he left, the formidable Helga, who been vital in rescuing them from the jungle. He didn't talk about it much, but she suspected she was reason numero uno that he was so excited to be back.

Of course, she supposed most teenaged boys would probably prefer living in a big city to living in the rainforest, helping with their parents' humanitarian work. Not that Arnold was like most teenage boys.

But she and Miles had discussed it, again and again, even before Phil was injured. Was it really right to deprive Arnold entirely of a normal youth? She and Miles didn't necessarily think much of the materialism of Western culture, but perhaps the lifestyle they were enforcing on him was too much? And they were worried they would be severely damaging his educational prospects if they didn't let him finish high school in the States.

No, she supposed they had always known Arnold would have to return. And she was happy that they had returned with him; she had already spent far too much time apart from him in his life. Still, that didn't mean she relished the prospect of Starbucks, football season, reality TV. And she worried about her friends back in San Lorenzo. She really wasn't sure if she could make the US feel like her home again after all this time.

But...she was willing to try.

"Watcha doin?" Miles asked groggily, in the way of a teenaged girl.

She turned from the window to smile at him. He had just woken from his nap. "Just thinking."

He sighed. "Haven't I taught you to stop that yet?"

Her smile widened. "Not yet. Keep trying."

His sigh this time was long-suffering and dramatic, before he straightened up in the bed to look at her properly. "So what you thinking about?"

She had her mouth open to reply when she heard what sounded like someone almost falling down the stairs from Arnold's room, followed a second later by awful retching. They looked at each other in mild alarm. "Oh dear," she said. "I hope Arnold didn't catch a bug travelling." She would have blamed the radish stew from earlier, but everyone else was fine.

She went out into the hall to investigate.

The first thing she saw was her son's best friend Gerald gazing down from Arnold's doorway, his face looking pained and...tear-stained? What?

She made her way quickly into the bathroom, where Arnold was heaving and choking, his face looking far worse than Gerald's. "Arnold?" she said, extremely alarmed now. She put her hand on his back and bent down next to him. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?" she asked urgently.

He sat back from the toilet, gasping in and out. It looked like he was going to say something, but then his face screwed up wretchedly and he shook his head. He kept shaking it, like he couldn't stop.

What could _possibly_ have caused this? She stood and sped back out to the hallway, looking up at Gerald for some explanation.

He looked from her to the open bathroom door and back, and started descending the stairs. He came to a stop in front of her and stared past her.

"Gerald, please tell me what's happened."

He met her eyes with great reluctance. "Mrs Shortman. You remember Helga Pataki?"

She nodded shortly. Of course she did; how could she forget? Now what in God's name had happened?

Gerald took a deep breath. "She was found dead earlier in the park."

She couldn't have helped the gasp of air she took, or the hand that fluttered uselessly towards her mouth. "Oh, _no_. Oh, that _poor girl_."

She looked helplessly at her son on the bathroom floor. _My poor boy_.

Miles stepped out of their bedroom slowly, in his pyjamas. "I...heard," he said. He stood beside Stella and shared a pained look with her, putting his hand on her shoulder, before they both turned to look at their son.

He was still kneeling on the floor, eyes closed and head bowed. Losing a friend, or whatever Helga was to him, at any age was bad enough, but as a teenager? They would have to be there for him like never before, keep a close eye on him. She knew enough about her son to know it would take him a long time to get over this.

 _Welcome home, Arnold_ , she thought sadly.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Same warning as last time, this chapter may be upsetting for those who've lost someone recently.

* * *

Arnold stared into his porridge. Porridge was gross, really. He picked some up on the spoon and put it in his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. He repeated the process. And again.

He put the spoon down and sat back in his chair.

"...Arnold?" said his mother, startling him. "Aren't you going to have any more?"

He looked up at her; she was sitting across the kitchen table from him, watching, as she always was now. He shook his head.

His father paused in drying the dishes behind her. "You really should try to have a little more, Arnold," he said tentatively. "You've barely eaten since...you heard. You'll need your strength today," he finished sadly.

Arnold gulped. He knew he would. "I'll be fine." Well that was a lie, but it wasn't lack of food that was the problem. "I'm gonna get dressed."

In his room, he took the suit that his parents had just bought him down from where it hung on his wardrobe. There hadn't been much need for a suit in San Lorenzo. He took off his pyjamas and reluctantly started to put on the formal clothes. He couldn't believe that he was getting dressed for Helga's funeral...

He buried his head in his hands and tried to compose himself. He just had to make it through this. Afterwards... Afterwards, it didn't matter.

He couldn't look at himself in the mirror; the suit reminded him too much of the dream he'd had last night. His subconscious was a sick bastard, and had been plaguing him with gloriously happy dreams about Helga so that he would feel the pain of remembering she was gone all over again when he awoke.

Last night, they had been getting married. He had woken on his wedding day from a terrible dream that Helga had died, only to feel the blissful relief of realising it wasn't true, that he was marrying her. She had looked so beautiful in her dress, her long blond hair cascading down her back in waves, her lips pink, her eyes shining in happiness. Arnold supposed his brain had held onto the knowledge of Helga and a church, and transformed it into the only thing that made any kind of sense.

He picked up a pink ribbon from his nightstand, the one she had given him from her hair when he left. He wrapped it around his hand and went downstairs.

* * *

The packard pulled into the church parking lot. They were early, but there were already people there. Arnold's grandparents were in the backseat with him, and bundled him out of the car.

"Jeez, I'm sorry Arnold," said his grandpa as they looked up at the church, his hand on his grandson's back. His grandma held Arnold's other arm. "I always thought... Well it's not important. Life is a senseless madman. At least you had Helga in your life. Not everyone gets a Helga," he finished sadly. His grandmother squeezed his arm tighter.

Arnold nodded, letting the tears drip as he stared at the ground. If anyone understood, it would be his grandpa. He understood the type of bond he and Helga shared.

He looked up and saw Gerald and Phoebe at the side of the church. He excused himself and went to join them.

"Hey, man," said Gerald, wrapping him in a hug. They had shared more hugs over the past few days than in their whole lives before that. He didn't ask how Arnold was doing, mercifully.

"Phoebe," said Arnold, and she met his eyes and immediately threw her arms around him. He hadn't seen Phoebe at all since... They had both been in too much of a state to visit anyone. Gerald had been going between them.

He held the small girl, Helga's best friend in the world, and she sobbed into him. They stood there like that for a while, each wrapped in their misery, and comforted to know they weren't alone in having a hole in their lives, even if those holes were different shapes.

Arnold's other old friends appeared one by one, the whole class of PS118, and most shared hugs and tears with him. But Arnold couldn't think of a thing to say to any of them.

Eventually, a woman in black began to usher people inside. They filed into the church, and he took a seat near the front with Gerald and Phoebe.

His eyes fixed on the coffin. She was in there. His Helga. It was a closed casket, due to the...the autopsy...and the attack. He had wanted to see her one last time.

He felt like he needed to throw up again. But for the whole rest of the funeral, his eyes remained fixed on the casket. He remembered acting in Romeo and Juliet as a kid, with Helga, whose kiss made a lot more sense in retrospect. He almost smiled at the memory, but couldn't manage it. At the time, he'd thought it was all ridiculous dramatics. But staring at that casket, he understood Romeo's impulse to poison himself. Maybe not for someone he had met three days ago, but Helga was someone he had met when he was three. This pain was so bad. He didn't know when it would end, or if he even wanted it to. Did he want to...to get over Helga?

His heart answered that with a resounding no.

The only other thing that he had any awareness of during the service was her sister's short eulogy. Arnold knew they had gotten closer over the years. Olga would be heartbroken.

She certainly looked it, as she took to the pulpit. "My dear baby sister..." she began, and broke down.

Bob and Miriam clutched at each other, both in pieces. Arnold knew they loved Helga, insofar as they were able, but he wished angrily that they could have realised her value...while she was alive.

Olga straightened and tried again. "My dear baby sister," she choked, "words can never express how I'll miss you. I remember the day you were born; it was the happiest day of my life. You were so full of personality and _life_ from your first breath. From your first steps, you forged your own path, and from your first word, you spoke your mind. We were very different, but I couldn't have been prouder to have such an intelligent, kind and passionate young woman as my sister..."

* * *

There was to be no wake, the family being too distraught to attend one. It was a beautiful summer's day outside in the graveyard, roasting hot. Helga's coffin was lowered into the ground, and earth poured over it. She was being put out of his reach. Forever. He felt like he was watching himself from very far away, a young man holding tissue to his face and looking like he belonged in one of the graves. That wasn't him. None of this was real. It was just another nightmare that he would wake up from like before.

Olga found him afterwards, pulling him aside from his family in the graveyard. She opened her black purse and took something gold out. On a long chain dangled a large heart-shaped locket. Arnold recognised it...

"They found this beside Helga," she said, her voice cracking. "She was wearing it. I...think you should have it."

It was the locket she had worn while they were dating. Not quite believing it, Arnold reached out and carefully took the necklace from her. The chain was broken, he saw, and swallowed hard. He fiddled with the clasp; surely...

And there he was. A photo from one of his more recent visits to the city. After all this time...she still felt the same.

His sobbing started afresh, wracking his whole body. "Thank you," he managed to say to Olga. "Thank you so much."

* * *

The heat broke into a storm that night. Arnold stared up at his glass roof, at the night sky through the rain, never truly dark in the city. He had to talk to her. He had to talk to _someone,_ and he wanted to talk to her.

He crawled forward and climbed the ladder to the roof, opening the skylight to the pouring rain and heaving himself out. He looked up at the sky; the chilling rain flooded his eyes, ran down his bare chest and soaked his pyjama pants. " _Helga_!" he yelled. " _This is wrong_!"

Arnold had never thought much about the afterlife. He tried not to; he tried to make the most of the life he had and not dwell on what he couldn't know. He had always hoped that there was something more, but he had never claimed to be certain. He didn't care, now. He felt that Helga was _somewhere_ and there were things they needed to talk about.

"How can this have happened!" He shook his head in despair. "It's..." For his whole life, he had felt a sense of...purpose. Destiny, some would call it, though he had never believed in such things. But he had to admit, his life had often followed a certain serendipitous path. It had given him courage - faith that things would work out in certain ways. Dumb optimism, as Helga had called it. And this path - hell, the whole course of his life - was inextricably tied up with Helga. Irrational as it was, he felt down to his bones that they would have ended up together. That that was where the threads of their lives were leading them. Fairytale nonsense, maybe, but he couldn't help that he believed it.

"I never should have left," he told her. "I don't know what my life is without you. Without you to bully me or kiss me or..." He gasped in pain. "I don't understand this. I feel like I'm...unraveling. I..." A wave of longing knocked him down and swept forward. " _I just wish I could see you!"_

 _Arnold!_

He gasped and fell backwards on his hands. "...Helga?"

What was that? What the heck was that? He couldn't tell if it had come from inside him or somewhere else. It felt like both. But it had sounded like her. It had _felt_ like her. " _Helga_?" he yelled desperately.

...Nothing. Of course nothing. She was dead. But...

All there was was him alone on a rooftop in the rain. He didn't know if he had finally gone mad, or if Helga had really managed to contact him from somewhere else.

He got no answers. Eventually, shaking, he crawled back through the window and into bed, shirking his drenched pyjamas. He lay there shuddering, until he fell into a fitful sleep not long before dawn.

* * *

He dreamt about her.

He and Helga were walking through the jungle, pushing branches out of their way, sweat pouring off both of them. "How much farther?" she whined.

He laughed. "Not far." They were almost there. It had been a long hike.

"I hope not," she said, grabbing onto him roughly. He smiled as she pressed her lips to his.

Her mouth moved feverishly against his; her hands raked down his back, clutched his hip. His blood was on fire. This was so different, so amazing. He pulled her tightly to him, deepening the kiss, wanting more...

A feeling of being watched. He pulled back, wary, looking around for some danger. None was apparent, but the feeling remained. "Come on," he said to Helga, taking her hand, "we better keep going."

They shoved their way onwards, and the feeling only intensified. He heard noises, something walking. Following them. He kept Helga close; he would protect her. He had to protect her.

They came to a small break in the trees, and there it was. A black jaguar, its eyes fixed on them. And there was a young man, Antio from the Green Eyes village, standing stock still as if being held hostage by the beast. Arnold heard Helga gasp, and clutched her tightly behind him.

"Arnold, you must run!" said Antio.

The jaguar watched them, panting, looking at each of them. It almost seemed impassive. Almost.

Arnold turned to grab Helga and make a break for it. But...she wasn't there. In her place was a panther, staring at him, yellow eyes consuming him. And he knew that, somehow, it was her.

" _Arnold_!" called Antio, sounding anguished. "You must run!" He was still glued in place, though the other panther was gone.

Arnold looked back to the cat's yellow eyes. "I can't." _It's Helga._


End file.
